Ladytron remembers the 80's in a way that no American ever could. Over on this side of the ocean, the 80's ended — and not quite with a bang, either. In many corners of the world, they did not. No one from Holland or Germany or Belgium (where Ladytron singer Mira Aroyo is from) will be confused if you start talking about Cyndi Lauper or English Beat. You can hum them a tune, and they will have heard it on the radio recently. Big-time commercial radio, even. Not some specialized 80's station. This goes a long way toward explaining Ladytron, as well as countless other bands that seem to have built their careers on taking ancient electronic instruments, many of which have names that end in three palindromic numbers, and several of which that were almost certainly manufactured by Casio, and giving them a dignity that could only spring from honest affection.

Ladytron's previous album, 604, combined these frankly dated sounds with moments of gossamer loveliness and well-produced tunefulness, making the comparison to Stereolab all but inevitable. Light and Magic takes a step back, or down, or... some damn direction... and lets the same sounds speak for themselves. The arrangements are often frankly goofy, consisting of little more than silly lilting synth lines and dirty, bargain basement beats. And yet, more than once they manage to pull a certain power and energy out of these instruments. They seem to have an encyclopedic working knowledge of what such instruments are and are not capable of, and the way they work within their limitations is at times a breathtaking balancing act. They dance along the knife-edge of self-parody and total irrelevance, but they never topple over. I'm unsure of exactly how much to praise this, but I'm certain it takes a weird, special sort of talent.

Take "Seventeen" for instance. Depeche Mode would have been ashamed to use the bass and synth lines that the song is structured around. In anyone else's hands, they would sound amateurish at best, and at worst really crappy. But then Aroyo breaks in and sings, "They only want you when you're seventeen / When you're 21, you're no fun," over and over and over until the song ends, making the line sound like a feminist mantra. The song continually adds layers of synth — oh, it's all synth, you best believe — until it reaches a simple, trancy elegance. I'm at a loss for words to explain how this happens. It just does. It's a crap song, and a very very good one. I found myself thinking that a lot while listening to Light and Magic. What great crap.

"Turn It On," a four-and-a-half minute instrumental that (with cleaner production) wouldn't have been out of place on Yaz's Upstairs at Eric's, absolutely wallows in the mud of its own retro-ness. "Startup Chime" creates a grand Siouxie-ish wall of gothic soup. And I can just see the video now for "Light and Magic": a black background, and video editing tricks along the lines of repeating images and colored tracers. And yet, somehow, it works. There's just enough spin on these songs, whether it comes from the clever songwriting or a certain amount of echo on the vocal, to save each and every one of them. The album could probably stand to be a bit shorter than 15 tracks and 60 minutes, and I do eventually get the urge to get up and turn on something a bit more substantial. But what do I know? I'm just a stupid American.